It is a noun of peculiar variability, perhaps all interconnected upon reflection. It can refer to the permission to enter, whether by right, payment or removal of obstacles; or, denoting the price of such entrance; or even yet, a confession or acknowledgment of a point taken; and in other contexts, of being accepted into a fraternity of sorts, as in “admission to a university” or “to the legal bar” – meaning, not an actual, physical movement through gates now open, but a conceptual membership into a community of selective individuals.

Is there a linguistic relationship between that sequestered sense of the word – of an acknowledgment or confession – in contradistinction to the other forms, all of the remainder of which encompasses an entrance, movement or acceptance to a desired destination upon the removal of an obstruction, whether by a physical gate or a nod of consent?

How about this: An admission denoting a confessional standard or conceding a point of conflict can be likened as a release, where pent-up resistance is suddenly or finally torn down, and the voluntary pouring out of one’s previously-withheld desire to “tell all” has been replaced with the emptying sensation of a satisfied conscience. You are now allowed into the community of guiltless souls, or at least of having the feeling of being released from the cage of deception in falsehood.

Admission in this sense is a freeing of one’s inner soul, and it is normally insufficient to bring that narrative of expiation in a silent soliloquy to one’s self; thus, there are confessionals and penitent individuals, bowing with genuflective subservience and unmasking one’s soul to someone cloaked in authoritative garments, and somehow the externalization of one’s guilty conscience has an antiseptic, cleansing effect.

Admission into a fraternity of brotherhood is always a welcoming act; admission of one’s mistakes, wrongs committed and sins adorned, has never been an easy undertaking, and less so in this day and age where moral equivalency is the prevailing rule of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue of admission is always twofold: First, the entire purpose of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is to gain admission into the class of former Federal and Postal employees who are now Federal Disability Retirement annuitants; and, secondly, it is important to allow for the difficult admission that the entire administrative and bureaucratic process is a complicated one, and therefore may require the assistance of legal counsel in order to successfully maneuver one’s way through the maze of complexities.

An admission in the first sense is thus the goal; an admission in the latter sense is merely a reflection of wisdom in progress for the Federal or Postal employee who, by necessity of a medical condition, needs to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Whether used metaphorically or in stark linguistic pragmatism but described with a shroud of nicety cloaked by innuendo and oblique allusion, the aggregate of detritus produced and scattered is daunting when calculated by daily volume, multiplied by the current population, and exponentially projected in terms of a mere decade or two. But waste or debris can take on many forms, including a reference to loss of potential, shattered emotional and psychological constructs destroyed by garbage left in the wounds of a child harmed.

Human detritus is the compilation of all of the garbage gathered by society, whether of abandoned towns and provinces left hollow and uninhabitable because of the ravages of war, or the production of things used and discarded for daily convenience; and in metaphorical terms, of the skeletons of men and women shed of the substance of form and character because of the treatment weathered on the shores of indecency.

Gather up the cumulative aggregate of human detritus having occupied this planet, both in terms of physical objects and the wounding shards of deliberating projectiles intent upon destruction and devastation, and we have a daunting sense of who we are, what we stand for, and where we are headed. Waste and debris; in the end, will those two words describe the sum total of what we have contributed to the world around us? What is the algorithm, or methodological approach, in determining that conclusion of accomplishments at the end of our lives? Is it determined in terms of how many neighbors and friends we destroyed, or of whom we bamboozled?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who seek to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits out of necessity of circumstances, it often appears that the answer to the previous question is found in the extent and unlimited character of cruelty found in the essence of humankind. Harassment, workplace stress and intolerance of less productivity discovered in the Federal or Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, are merely further indicia of the eternal bewilderment we discover concerning human invective.

Accommodation of one’s medical condition is rarely found; an exponential rise in human passivity and loss of empathetic response has become the norm; and because there is no other exit, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the alternative of choice, and understandably so.

For, in the end, the cost of human detritus resides not in the workplace which we left, or the placards promised but discarded in the hidden closets of dusty psyches; rather, the cost is counted by the scars hidden when actions known to benefit remain mere thoughts of procrastinated dreams, like the warm breath of gods and angel’s wings fluttering in the timeless eternity of last year’s wishes.

Does the palm reader tell from lines deepened and extended by time, or in the creases of birth and predetermined fate? Do the ruts and chasms criss-crossing like doodling designs created by a madman mixing a cauldron of witch’s brew depend upon fate already set, or can the future be altered by choices one foresees? And what of the face — the creases around one’s mouth, the ruts above the furrowed brow, or the fine filaments of timeless cuts around the eyes; do they tell a story of joy and promise, or of sadness and sorrow?

The furrowed face is but a moment’s expression; it is rather the corrugated painting, forever captured in the stitch of life’s experiences, which lasts in timeless bottles of floating memories, like butterflies caught in a web of deception where promises of boundless expectations and revelations of hope as sung from the loving tongues of mothers dreaming of tomorrow’s future for children yet unborn.

Time, experience, and confrontations of life tend to deepen the furrowed face of age. As do medical conditions. It is when the tripartite combination coalesces, that decisions need to be made, lest extinguishment of life become the goal of sorrow. For, when a medical condition comes to the fore, it impacts one’s capacity and ability; when capacity and ability become impacted, then one’s work suffers; and when one’s work begins to suffer, the notice of employers, coworkers, and the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to turn on its engine of harassment and adversarial modalities of meddlesome trickery.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service care not whether the ruts and grooves of the furrowed face deepen by the actions of an uncaring bureaucracy.

As Americans spend billions each year on health care and cosmetic products to enhance beauty and delay the inevitable lines of age, so it is often the best medicine to alter the predetermined fate of time by considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, when the furrowed face of life requires such a step. Adulthood rarely spares any of us from the deep ruts of facial scars; and when there is a “baby face” in middle age, it often reflects deeper chasms and valleys within the psyche, where hidden traumas are screaming to be let out.

Federal and Postal employees who face the problems of work because of a medical condition have the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, and begin planning for another stage of one’s life in the private sector. Not everyone has such an option or an opportunity in the face of a medical condition which robs the Federal or Postal worker from continuing in one’s chosen career, but OPM Disability Retirement is that rare benefit which allows for further employment while receiving an annuity.

In that sense, the furrowed face need not be the last and frozen picture of a person’s future, and the palm reader may yet be tentative in predicting the final chapter of one’s life.

Concerns over “identity theft” abound in this information age where an almost unlimited trove of personal data gets transmitted through the ethereal universe of the Internet.

Certainly, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management itself should be aware of this, with the recent hacking of Social Security Numbers, birth dates, responses to security questions, etc., and their failure to protect such sensitive caches of information. But such thievery is normally recoverable; new passwords and keywords can be changed and obtained; additional walls of security impositions can be constructed, and life can be returned to a relative level of normalcy, with mere vestiges of fading memories of inconvenience to haunt our daily lives.

There are other forms of identity thievery, however, which can be more onerous, and unrecoverable. When an individual is stripped of his or her identity as developed over many years through hard work, dedication and loyalty to a purpose or cause, and that reputation becomes destroyed in quick order and succession resulting from circumstances beyond one’s immediate control, where is the restorative avenue for that? To what door or office does one apply to regain the loss, and return back to a sense of normalcy?

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who are daily harassed because they suffer from a medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform, any longer, the full essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal sector or for the U.S. Postal Service, such “identity theft” of an alternate kind is well known and intimately experience.

Those multiple years of toil, dedication and loyalty to development of fine-tuned talents in order to perform one’s job with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service — they become for naught, when one’s worth is so closely tied to one’s health, whether physical or psychiatric. And so it may be time to “move on”, and this means, in all likelihood and necessity, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Yes, ultimately, one’s OPM Disability Retirement application must be filed with the very same agency whose vault of personal personnel information was hacked into; but that is often the irony of life itself, where the Federal or Postal employee must knock on the very door which allowed for identity theft, in order to regain it again for a new and brighter tomorrow.

The term, “decapitalization” often refers to the deliberate and systematic process of imposing harsh government policies in order to alter the private sector’s hold upon society’s commercial entanglement and mercantile involvement.

In some grammatical contexts, however, it can denote the reduction of capitalized lettering into “small” letters, and thereby change its appearance, import, and even “meaning”. e.e. cummings is a fine example of this. Or, on a “title page”, one would expect that the concept of “Life’s Wisdoms” would be capitalized, for essentially two main reasons: The first word, “Life”, is too great a theme not to ascribe the signification of it, as well as being the beginning part of the title; and the second, well, if it was good enough for Solomon, then we should certainly designate and captivate with a position of priority.

So, why has it been “reduced” in the heading of this short blog, you ask? Because most of life’s wisdoms are not provided at the time of birth on a silver tray packaged in a unitary compendium; rather, they are “dished out” in small increments, over time, through encounters both expected and unasked for; and always when we least desire it.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal Sector and the U.S. Postal Service, seeking out “information” in order to begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may take on many and variegated forms: Internet Research; contact with the Human Resource Office; call to an attorney; discussions with others who have gone through the administrative and bureaucratic process; unloading upon family and friends, etc.

Always remember, however, that there is a vast chasm of differences between “information” and “wisdom”, and the mere fact that much of information provided “out there” is capitalized with blaring trumpets of fanfare and glitter, ascribing signification by making something into an “upper case” designation, or otherwise in priority of sequence, does not transform the “it” into anything more than what first the skeleton of the entity originated. Saying it doesn’t make it so; dressing it up does not complete a substantive metamorphosis begun in nascent shivers of intended good.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who must make wise decisions concerning one’s future course of actions because filing for OPM Disability Retirement has become a necessity, the conversion from aggregating mere information to obtaining life’s wisdoms must come about first through a decision to decipher and sift through the vast and irrelevant information “out there”, and then to implement a course of action which sounds right, considers the differing interests at hand, and then to emulate the experiential factors we have accumulated over these many years of trials and turmoil.

Aristotle refers to the underlying unchangeableness of the world we encounter, in contrast to the cosmetic alterations which appear to defy the constancy of the universe, thereby bringing together the two poles of philosophical opposition as represented by Heraclitus and Parmenides. That “substratum” which underlies it all, and of which Heidegger sought to unravel and make known; for the everyday person, it is the “stuff of life” that we must deal with.

Things happen (which is a more genteel way of putting it, as opposed to the colorful vernacular by which it is often known), and the aggregation of all of the compendium of cumulative such bundles — of bad childhoods, decisions we make, corners we turn, the stresses which bombard, marriage, children, the inconstancy of life’s trials and travails, and medical conditions which impede and debilitate — some are mere appearances which dissipate as time endures, while others constitute the substratum, or the Forms of Platonic Philosophy, and must be accepted as the essence of our very Being.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must endure the hardship of surviving through a medical condition, where the medical condition itself begins to impact the ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal duties, that “stuff” must add one more component: the reaction of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, in attempting to accommodate the medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s positional duties. Stuff happens, and the stuff of life must be dealt with.

For Federal and Postal workers, the question of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is one which must begin with the core of human need and daily suffering.

Do we wait until all appearances fade away, and we are left with nothing but the exposure of what remains? Do we “fight on” until the essence of who we are is lost forever? That is often the conflict which must be resolved, and to which the Federal or Postal employee must resign him or herself to — of whether the Federal or Postal job is merely another one of the “stuff of life“, or have you made it into the Staff of Life?

In modernity, what is the “Social Contract”, and does it still hold any meaning? Or, is the bundle of bureaucracy, the conflict between the competitive predatoriness of capitalism left to its own devices resulting in a cronyism of wealthy interconnections, as opposed to the growing girth of Federalism with a pittance and breadcrumbs left to State governments to fill in some minor gaps — does the aggregate of such entities, comprised of regulations, statutes, laws and a compendium of languages isolated in fine print, all together reflect the vestiges of the Social Contract we once revered as the awe-inspiring product of the Age of Enlightenment?

Would Rousseau, and to a lesser extent Hobbes, and further explained in Locke’s Treatise, represent anything of value, anymore? Or are we left to our own devices, as Darwin proposed those many decades ago on the lapping shores of the Galapagos, where survivability is determined by genetic origin, environmental refinement, and ultimately the devices used in subterfuge when societal niceties require at least a surface semblance of genteel behavior? In the end, the concept of a “Social Contract” means little if the basic legal constructs are not adhered to.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers, such legal constructs are represented by the cumulative promises made by the bureaucracy which employs them, comprised of statutes, regulations, executive orders and corollary mandates. For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the idea of honoring the Social Contract becomes important, because part of that agreement is to fairly treat the Federal or Postal employee when the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able, because of a medical condition, to continue working in the same job.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is each day a test as to the continuing resolution of the viability of the Social Contract. While not every Federal or Postal employee may be automatically eligible for the benefits to be received through Federal Disability Retirement, it is the fairness of the process which is important, and whether a proper course of administrative protocols are followed and met throughout the entirety of the bureaucratic process.

In the end, those vestiges of that grand idea originating in the minds of philosophers — the highfalutin concept of a Social Contract — are only as good as the promises made and declarations kept in the things that impact the everyday lives of ordinary people, like those dedicated public servants who toil daily in the Federal Sector and the U.S. Postal Service.

Seven False Myths about OPM Disability Retirement

1) I have to be totally disabled to get Postal or Federal disability retirement.
False: You are eligible for disability retirement so long as you are unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job. Thus, it is a much lower standard of disability.

2) My injury or illness has to be job-related.
False: You can get disability even if your condition is not work related. If your medical condition impacts your ability to perform any of the core elements of your job, you are eligible, regardless of how or where your condition occurred.

3) I have to quit my federal job first to get disability.
False: In most cases, you can apply while continuing to work at your present job, to the extent you are able.

4) I can't get disability if I suffer from a mental or nervous condition.
False: If your condition affects your job performance, you can still qualify. Psychiatric conditions are treated no differently from physical conditions.

5) Disability retirement is approved by DOL Workers Comp.
False: It's the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the federal agency that administers and approves disability for employees at the US Postal Service or other federal agencies.

6) I can wait for OPM disability retirement for many years after separation.
False: You only have one year from the date of separation from service - otherwise, you lose your right forever.

7) If I get disability retirement, I won't be able to apply for Scheduled Award (SA).
False: You can get a Scheduled Award under the rules of OWCP even after you get approved for OPM disability retirement.